Tuesday night cocktail hour(s)

Last Tuesday night's cocktail hour(s) included some new guests, some regulars, some new drinks, and some old ones.  Here's what I served, some of which were served multiple times...


Mai Tai


1 oz amber rum (Flor de Caña 7 year)
1 oz Jamaica rum (Myers's)
3/4 oz lime juice
1/2 oz triple sec
1/2 oz orgeat syrup
1/4 oz simple syrup
Shake, rocks.


Apple/Orange Mai Tai (my modification)

1 oz applejack (Laird's)
1 oz Jamaica rum (Myers's)
3/4 oz fresh lime juice
1/2 oz triple sec
1/2 oz orgeat syrup
1/4 oz simple syrup
2 dashes orange bitters (Regans')
Shake, rocks.


Tom Collins

2 oz London Dry gin
2 tsp lime juice
2 tsp simple syrup
Shake all but club soda.  Strain into a Collins glass with ice.  Add club soda to the top, and agitate to mix.


Sherman's March (my invention)

1 oz bourbon (Knob Creek)
1 oz Southern Comfort
1 tsp grain alcohol or overproof rum (Everclear)
2 dashes peach bitters (Fee Bros.)
1 dash Fee Bros. Old Fashion bitters
Stir all but overproof spirit on ice; strain into a cocktail/champagne coupe.  Float overproof spirit on the top, and ignite.  Spray oil from a lemon peel twist into the flames.  Quickly drink after the fire goes out.


Cocktail a la Louisiane

3/4 oz rye
3/4 oz Benedictine
3/4 oz sweet vermouth
3 dashes absinthe
3 dashes Peychaud's bitters
Stir, strain, homemade maraschino cherry. 

My favorite cocktails, part 5: the Sazerac

The Sazerac:
The most beautiful thing you can put in your mouth.
--David L. Smith, MD

Don't let anyone from New Orleans convince you that the Sazerac was the first cocktail.  That apocryphal story circles around this city like Achilles with Hector in tow, but it's not even close to true.  It is true that, in the 1850s, the owner of the Sazerac Coffee House combined Sazerac-du-Forge et Fils Cognac with absinthe and the bitters produced by New Orleans apothacary Antoine Peychaud for his signature cocktail.  In the second half of the 19th century, both Civil War blockade and French wine-country crop failures made Cognac scarce in New Orleans.  Thereafter, rye became the spirit of choice for this drinker's delicacy.

Three anecdotes:
a) I once had a cocktail party at which I served ten classic cocktails (in 1/3 proportions) to ten guests.  That makes 100 different drink experiences.  I took a poll that night, and every person thought the Sazerac was the best drink of them all.
b) A close (and very successful) friend once told me, in all seriousness, that my teaching him how to make a good Sazerac was "...one of the ten most important things I've learned in my entire life, maybe top five."

My favorite cocktails, part 3: the Improved gin cocktail

This time, we'll move to gin. I don't like gin straight, but I'll admit it's good for mixing drinks because it's very versatile. There was a point in my life when I was ready to give up on gin altogether and dedicate myself entirely to whiskey. I told Kirk Estopinal at Cure of my resolution, but I gave him (and gin) one last chance to convince me otherwise. Kirk brought his best and changed my mind with an Improved gin cocktail:

1.5 oz gin (Aviation)
1 tsp simple syrup
1 tsp Luxardo maraschino liqueur
2 dashes Peychaud's bitters
2 dashes Regans' orange bitters
1 dash absinthe (I use 3 drops)
Stir on ice; orange twist.

This exquisite cocktail is the best gin cocktail I've ever had and could ever hope to have.

Tuesday night cocktail hour(s) (cont.)

Matt and Michele came over, and she ordered the Sazerac d'orange as her single allowed drink (lest she start catfights with the other women there). I developed the Sazerac d'orange to make a respectable cocktail for my Sazerac-averse then-girlfriend, Julietta. It's just a Sazerac with the addition of Regan's orange bitters and an orange twist instead of lemon. Because I'm trying to utilize my Berber syrup, a simple syrup combined with a number of indiginous north-African spices, I made a

Berber Sazerac

1 oz Sazerac 6 year rye
1 oz Wild Turkey 101 rye
1/4 oz Berber syrup
1 dash Peychaud's bitters
1 dash Fee Bros. orange bitters

Combine, stir with ice, and set aside. Rinse/coat a chilled Old Fashioned glass with absinthe or absinthe substitute (Herbsaint or Pernod) and discard the excess. Strain the rye mixture into the coated OF glass. Add a twist of orange peel and mosten the glass's rim with the orange oil, too.

Berber simple syrup: Combine oh, I don't know, a tablespoon each of cracked black peppercorn, coriander seeds, and cardimom; maybe 3 inches-worth of cinnamon sticks; a teaspoon or two a paprika; a dozen whole cloves; a couple teaspoons of allspice; a teaspoon or so of cumin seeds; a couple cracked star-anise pods and roast in a sauce pan for a few minutes. Then add 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of water and raise to a boil. Then remove from heat. Strain the solid components from the solution (think coffee filter) and refrigerate the syrup for up to a few weeks.

This cocktail was (predictably) spicier than it's Sazerac base, and that in a pleasant, interesting way. Was it better than a Sazerac? Of course not. But was it a fun supra-Saharan sidetour? Yes.